MONGOLIA – Questions unanswered: government denies registration of NGO
9 July 2009 12:00 pm

Since 2007, the
Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Centre (LGBT Centre), a non-governmental
and non-profit organisation, has been denied official registration by the State
Registration Authority of Mongolia since 2007. In a letter on 10 July 2009
(below), FORUM-ASIA urged the chief commissioner of the National Human Rights Commission
of Mongolia to conduct an investigation on the case.

Since 2007, the
Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Centre (LGBT Centre), a non-governmental
and non-profit organisation, has been denied official registration by the State
Registration Authority of Mongolia since 2007. In a letter on 10 July 2009
(below), FORUM-ASIA urged the chief commissioner of the National Human Rights Commission
of Mongolia to conduct an investigation on the case.

We write to you today to urge your office to conduct an investigation into the
denial by the State Registration Authority of Mongolia to register the Lesbian
Gay Bisexual and Transgender Centre (LGBT Centre), a non-governmental,
non-profit, non-membership based organisation, which has its offices in
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

We were informed that the LGBT Centre initiated its registration process on
February 2007. At that time, they were advised by the Ministry of Justice and
Home Affairs that the term "LGBT" was not found in the Mongolian
language. After that attempt, the LGBT Centre, due to funding limitations, had
been unable to pursue its registration for the most part of 2007 and 2008. It
was only able to secure enough funding to again pursue its registration in
April 2009. This time, it filed its application with the State Registration
Authority, the government entity that is now in charge of registering
organisations in the country. Regrettably, the LGBT Centre was again met by
several stringent conditions and requirements from the State Registration
Authority. Please find attached a chronology detailing every meeting the LGBT
Centre had with the State Registration Authority.

On 1 May 2009, Mr. Ts. Otgonbaatar, the founding member of the LGBT Centre, was
verbally informed by a certain Mr. Suren of the State Registration Authority
that they approved of the LGBT Centre's activities, but the name of the
organisation was "not moral and the public will not welcome it." It
was after this meeting that the LGBT Centre decided to secure the services of a
lawyer to facilitate its registration.

On 11 June 2009, Ms. Khulan Davaa, the lawyer for the LGBT Centre, wrote to the
organisation that she had met with the officers of the Legal Entities
Registration Department (LERD) of the State Registration Authority twice in
late May 2009. The officers of the LERD informed her that the registration of
the LGBT Centre had been denied for the following reasons:

• The name
  "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender" was too long and that
  Mongolians were not familiar with this term in the Mongolian lexicon; and
• The abbreviation
  "LGBT" was not allowed under current Mongolian law and that
  names of organisations should be clear enough for the public to understand
  its activities.

We
believe that the refusal of the State Registration Authority to approve the
application for registration of the LGBT Centre is contrary to Mongolian law
and international human rights law. 

To read the complete statement, please click here (pdf).